


if we meet again

by shescapricious



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Death, M/M, Multiverse, Noren, Parallel Universes, angsty renjun, markhyuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28109328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shescapricious/pseuds/shescapricious
Summary: Can you blame Renjun if he wishes to meet his late boyfriend, Jeno, again, even in a universe that's not his own?
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Lee Jeno
Comments: 7
Kudos: 10





	if we meet again

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my first ever fic! It is my first time writing something like this so please bear with me and don't come at me for my trashy writing. :(( 
> 
> Anyways, I do hope you enjoy this fic, however this turns out!

“Fucking hell,” Renjun curses as he silently tries to catch his breath while leaning on a wall of stone bricks.

He’s currently in a narrow alley — it’s really narrow since it could barely fit Renjun’s already slim figure, trying to hide from the palace guards that’s been chasing him for a good few minutes now. He can’t really see anything at the moment, since it is currently nighttime and it’s pitch black in this alleyway. With that, he has to rely on his hearing to make sure that those chasing him aren’t nearby. He hears boots hitting the ground, and he decides to let them pass before he leaves his hiding spot. He was never built for something like this – something that requires stamina. He used to be a simple Physics professor back in where he came from, and he never really exercised despite his boyfriend’s nagging.

Renjun felt his heart hurt a little at the thought of his late boyfriend, and the corners of his eyes stinged a little. He brings his hand to his chest, digging under the layers of traditional clothing until he feels the cool metal against his fingers. With sorrow in his eyes, he looks down at his locket — Jeno’s locket, Zinnia, as Jeno calls, and sighs.

“Why did you leave me?” he whispers to no one.

He lets himself get lost in the memories, the sadness. It has been a while since he heard the news of his boyfriend’s death, but everytime he hears Jeno’s name, the pain feels fresh again, as if he keeps on forgetting that he’ll never see him again. Or not. Renjun blinks rapidly in an attempt to keep the tears forming in the corner of his eyes from falling. He misses Jeno. He misses his touch. He misses his hugs, his kisses, his smile, the way he feels every time he—

Renjun freezes in his place. Suddenly aware of his surroundings once again. He focuses on his hearing, trying to hear again what jolted him back from his depressing thoughts. Renjun heard nothing this time, but he decided to stand straight once again. He waits for a moment, focusing on his senses as he feels the warm summer air hit his face and drops of sweat trickle down his spine under his thick clothing. He spins around, which was pointless since he can’t see anything, and after confirming that he’s alone and that he lost the guards, he steps out of his hiding spot.

It only takes less than ten steps before Renjun hears another noise, clearer this time. His entire being told him to run despite his fatigue and exhaustion, and so he did. For a man that barely ran in his entire life, Renjun is surely doing well, although he is now functioning solely on adrenaline. The problem is, doing well isn’t enough. He must survive. He is breathing hard, and the wind is now cooler against his skin. He grits his teeth as he pushes his body to run faster.

He hears the footsteps follow him. He was certain that there was more than one person chasing him, and as much as he wants to know how many he is running from, he doesn’t have the time or the energy to look back and count.

He kept on running, until they reached the market, and he slowed down, although he kept a fast pace, as he weaved through the crowd. His heart hammers in his chest, his heartbeat ringing in his ears, swallowing the noise of the crowd.

Eventually, he reaches a location clear with people, and he starts to sprint again after eyeing dark figures approaching him. They entered the woods, and Renjun used the abundance of trees to confuse the guards, hoping that he’ll lose them. He didn’t.

Renjun kept on running despite the burning feeling in his chest and his robes weighing him down. He can barely breath, but he keeps in mind that he owes it to Renjun, to Renjun who actually owns this body, to keep him out of the trouble he caused.

Renjun hears the footsteps come closer, and he tries to run faster, a string of curses leaving his mouth. In his head, he curses himself for all the stupid decisions he made in his life that led him to this predicament. If only Jeno was there to stop me, he thought.

The sudden thought of his boyfriend, for the second time tonight, blurred his vision, and he almost failed to stop when he reached a cliff.

With hands on his knees, body crouched, and chest heaving, he looks down. A sea, or maybe an ocean. Looking at it, Renjun thinks that he could survive the jump, assuming that the water isn’t that steep. He calculates in his head, just like he always does, the chances of getting caught after jumping. But really, he is left with no other choice if he wants to lose the guards.

Renjun looks back for a second, the guards’ torches now becoming brighter and footsteps getting louder. He faces the water, and with a deep breath, jumps.

The warm water envelopes him, and he struggles to swim to the surface with his clothes constricting him. He curses himself for not thinking things through and once again tries to swim up. He can’t.

Renjun is a good swimmer, and he is amazing — as his best friend Donghyuck describes him — at holding his breath. He begs to this body, this Huang Renjun’s body, to hang tight. His arms are moving but his entire body seems to go nowhere except down. Desperate, he tried to move his body as much as he could, which proved to be a bad decision as he sank further.

This is it, huh? Renjun thought to himself as he closed his eyes in defeat. The sea is so calm, a contrast to Renjun’s panicking mind, and racing heart. This death is not only a death of one being, but two. The Huang Renjun that belongs to this universe and the Huang Renjun of another universe, and this death is in the hands of the latter.

Renjun attempted to laugh bitterly — or at least he thought he did. He brought this upon himself. Why did he even decide to jump to this universe? How did everything go down? One thing for certain though, is that it’s Renjun’s fault.

\---

“You look miserable,” Donghyuck comments as he steps in Renjun’s room.

Renjun has lost count, but he knows it has been a few days, probably a week now, since he last left his bed.

“Leave me, Hyuck,” Renjun groans to his pillow.

“Fine, fine.” Renjun can’t see his best friend’s face but he was certain that he was rolling his eyes. “I’m just here to drop off some of Jeno’s stuff. Mrs. Lee told me you might want them.”

Renjun hears a thud, then footsteps, then a door closing. He then rolls and sits up. He looks at where he heard the thud, and it took a moment for his eyes to gain focus. There’s a throbbing pain in his skull, probably from all the crying he did, but he tries to ignore it as he stares at the box on his desk. It was a regular box made of cardboard. It wasn’t that big, but it wasn’t small either. In fact, it covered half of his desk. The thing is, no matter how ordinary the box looks, it seems to glare at Renjun.

Renjun’s blanket rustles as the boy stands up, and his world spins. He groans as he leaned on his bedside table for support, cursing himself for being stupid and not eating for days.

After gaining his bearing, he beelines to his desk and sits on his chair. He doesn’t know what to feel as he moves closer to the box. He pretty much cried out every emotion he had left, and all he has now is a huge Jeno-sized emptiness in his heart, and hopelessness.

He was thinking of ignoring the box, given that, it might just reopen his wounds, but ultimately decides against it. He never healed after all.

After taking in a long breath, he opens the box’s lid, and he holds his breath as the contents are revealed before his eyes.

Before he knows it, a drop of tear escapes his eyes and lands on one of the photo albums in the box. With shaking hands, Renjun goes through his boyfriend’s things.

There were a lot of photos; a couple of photo albums, which Renjun knows every picture in it by heart; a few cat plushies, Renjun gifted him plushies, despite Jeno wanting a real cat, because of his allergies; Jeno’s glasses, the one Renjun broke when they were still enemies in college; Jeno’s small hardbound notebook, the one where Jeno writes the ideas from his innovative mind; a page of a lined notebook, in which one side is filled with random scribbles, and the other has a sketch of a man, the man Renjun loved — loves — that he drew one day in senior year in one of the classes he shared with Jeno — the moment he realized that he was catching feelings for him; and lastly, a locket (“It’s called Zinnia!” Jeno would say). It wasn’t an ordinary locket. It was something Jeno has been working on. Jeno always wondered about a lot of things, and he wanted to invent things. One of them is Zinnia.

Renjun picks up the locket. The locket is of color gold, and engraved on its surface is the flower it was named after, Zinnia. Another tear runs down Renjun’s face as he remembers how he was the one who designed that. He remembers how he would stay up with Jeno in their shared room until ungodly hours just to watch him and help him work on his invention. He would cling onto Jeno’s unused arm, whenever he thinks he could, and Jeno would look at him, with a few tired lines on his face, then kiss him lightly before bringing back his attention to his work.

He did not notice it, but Renjun is now sobbing, eyes shut tight as grips the locket in his hand. He hears himself hiccup, his body rising and falling frantically, and all he can do is hug himself.

He hears a click, and he sharply opens his hand in front of him. The locket is now open, and inside it lies several small buttons and controls. Renjun does not know the function of each one, but he knows a few of them, and all the others are safely stored and written in Jeno’s notebook. He stared at the locket, Zinnia, with wonder, and his eyes grew wide when he saw a white light in it blink.

_“One day, this one right here will light up, and this – Zinnia will work,” Jeno used to say to Renjun with a smile on his face and a sparkle in his barely visible eyes._

“You were right,” Renjun whispers, and before he knew it — before anyone knew it, he stood up from his place, and his mind was running uncontrollable thoughts, pieces clicking in place. “Shall we meet again, honey?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg i finally finished the first chapter of my first ever fic! please do leave comments so that i may know how i am doing. love u all <3


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